In parenteral solution therapy, supplemental medication is often added to the patient along with the bulk solutions. This may be conveniently done, for example, by means of the ADD-A-LINE and the CONTINU-FLO sets for parenteral solution administration sold by Travenol Laboratories, Inc. of Deerfield, Ill., and described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,034,754 and 4,105,029.
Accordingly, materials such as antibiotic may be administered at the physician's option on an intermittent basis during intravenous solution treatment by means of a connection into the main intravenous solution line communicating with the venous system of the patient, or on a continuous basis by addition to the bulk solution.
In a large hospital operation, it of course would be desirable to have the supplemental medicament materials ready in their liquid, diluted form for immediate administration at the option of the physician. However, many of these materials must be stored in the dry form until immediately before use, particularly because of the danger of contamination through bacterial growth, or lack of pharmaceutical stability, which may result when the liquid or dry medicament is mixed or reconstituted by adding a diluent a substantial period of time before its administration.
In accordance with this invention, a sterile system is provided in which liquid or dry medicament materials or the like may be mixed or reconstituted with a sterile diluent at a convenient time substantially prior to the time of use, while at the same time retaining the reliable, sterile seal of the system so that multiplication of bacteria in the system is not a problem. As a result of this, fluid or dry medicaments and the like can be mixed or reconstituted with diluent in a hospital pharmacy, for example, at a convenient slack period time, and stored for uses on future date. Then, when the medicament is needed, it is ready in liquid form for immediate use without having to go through the time-consuming effort of reconstituting the material with diluent at the time when it is needed.